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Keeping a Facebook Page alive and reaching people takes work but with this short list that work should be much, much easier.

Your page on Facebook is competing for attention with millions of other apges and hundreds of friends per fan. That means that you need an edge in the Edge Rank race.

If Facebook decides that your page is boring then your page will reach no one. To stop that happenbing here are ten things that everyone should know about Facebook Pages

1. Your Facebook Page needs to get a reaction

Facebook actively judges your page and if it thinks you are being boring less people will see what you post. They call this Edge Rank and all you really need to know is that you have to maintain it or it fades away.

To maintain the Facebook Page Edge Rank you need your fans to react to stuff. Likes, shares and comments are all good in this regard.

Every time someone reacts to something on the page Facebook rates that something as more interesting and shows it to more people. Generally these people are fans of the page or friends of the fans.

Bore the fans of your page and Facebook will actually hide your content from some or even all of the fans. You obviously do not want this to happen.

2. You will probably only reach about half your page fans

Unless you are some kind of content king then the chances are about 50% of your fans will never see the content from your page. There is very little you can do about this.

The one thing you can do is keep the fans interacting with the page posts. Fans that like, share or comment will see more from the page while those that do not engage will see less. Getting a like and keeping that person seeing your stuff are two very different things.

3. Facebook pages need daily content

It should come as no surprise, then, that your Facebook Page needs new content every day. Without fail.

Any day that your page does not put something out is a risk of lost engagement. A risk of someone who likes your page never seeing the content of the page again.

On the flip side too much content is seen as just as bad. Facebook will start to filter what gets seen as with that goes the chance to get the levels of interaction that your Facebook Page needs to stay alive.

According to the large number of things I have read on the subject it seems that the best rate of new content is from one to three posts a day to the page.

At least one and no more than three should be what you are aiming for. Break this rule once in a while if you have a very good reason but otherwise treat it as a strict quality limit.

4. The Page Post Schedule option is the tool of choice

When you have ten things to say at the same time or if you need to go away for a few days then use the power of the schedule option to space your content out.

This will help you make sure that not a day goes by without something and will help you stay within the one to three limit that other people have worked out works best with Facebook Pages.

5. Not all hours are created equal

When you do schedule your posts you need to think about not just the day they will appear but what time during the day. Try and match the timing of your post for the times when your fans are most likely to check Facebook.

This is almost always a case of trial and error. Keep an eye on the admin area stats which will give you insights into when your fans interact most.

If your page is new then you might want to think about what sort of people are interested in your page and when they are most active. For example office workers often check Facebook just after nine while others wait until the early evening when they are home.

To reach everyone you will need to very carefully select when your three posts go out. Not only that but it pays to think about the order of your posts. For example content that might be of most interest to office workers is going to be different from the content that interests stay at home parents.

Every page on Facebook is different but for all pages the hours oft he day are not the same value. Some hours are simply better than others.

6. Asking questions drives engagement

Asking questions is a perfect way to drive interaction. It prompts people to comment.

Take advantage of all comments by liking and replying (as the page) to every comment. If at all possible reply in the form of a question to keep the conversation going.

If people feel that the page is going to talk to them then they are more likely to comment. This will raise the Edge Rank for the page as a whole and keep more fans being reached by your content.

This can work too for "fans" with controversial opinions although be careful that they do not start driving away other fans. Be ready to remove comments designed only to make people angry if they pop up too often. A little controversy is healthy too much is deadly.

7. Pictures are great for getting new likes

Posting images, even if those images are basically just text are good ways to get new likes for the page. This works because people share pictures that they agree with (especially if the image says "share if you agree").

Pictures being shared can reach far beyond the fan base.

If you do not have access to expensive image editing software then there are free packages that are almost as good such as GIMP.

A pastel background and some easy to read text with a positive, shareable, message can work wonders if you do not over do it.

8. Links to other stuff are good cheap content

Sometimes you just cannot come up with something original for your daily post. That's when links to other things come in. Your fans will thank you for sharing a great link to a quality article or resource that relates to the page.

A quick Google on the subject of your choice should yield plenty of material.

just paste the link in and wait for the page to load the preview before removing the link text and writing something human about why this is a great link.

Cheap free content for Facebook Pages as supplied by Google.

Of course if this is all you put out then the page will see a drop in the number of people engaged but as a stop gap a quick link to something great works wonders.

9. Mixing it up is vital

In a few of the points (links and pictures) I have said not to over do it. I have said that only doing that one thing is bad. Because it is - people like some variety on their Facebook.

Mixing it up - posting links, text, videos and pictures keeps things interesting and maximises the reach of each kind of media.

Once you have been going for a while you will start to see that your fans respond best to specific content types and you will probably want to focus on those content types but even then mix it up a bit anyway.

Whatever you do - do not be boring.

10. Facebook Pages work best with the 80:20 rule

The "80:20 rule" is that you should be posting about 20% of that stuffto 80% of the other stuff. This works on topics as well as media and content types.

This boils down to that thing being every fifth post. So if your page is about dresses but you want to post cat pictures as long as there are at least four dress related posts between any two cat pics then your fans will happily tolerate you going off topic. Any less and they will start to think that you have forgotten why the page was started.

The same goes for posts telling people to buy your product. Try following a page that only posts the same message about their 5% discount or whatever and see how long before you unfollow them. If you last even a few days then you have done very well.

Following the "at most three posts a day" guideline that means that you get one shot a day at telling people to buy your stuff.

For best results come up with five sub topics for the page (one of which can be your product or meeting or whatever) and make sure that you put out one item for each in rotation. That way you will never have the page sound like a broken record.

Trust the 80:20 rule - it really does work.

What did I miss?

Those are my top ten things everyone should know about running a Facebook Page. What would you add?

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Add your comment. If you give a link it will be a do follow link but if you post one in your comment it will be nofollowed. I'm no fan of keywords as names and will be tempted to yank the link out if irritated. Handles, anon's and keywords in brackets after the name is sometimes okay. For example "Matt (Lord Matt)" is cool. Feel free to disagree respectfully, correct me or just say what you think. Praise is also nice.